


The Raven Mask

by zillah975



Series: An Unkindness of Ravens [5]
Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Gen, World of Warcraft RP
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-19
Updated: 2017-01-19
Packaged: 2018-09-18 14:46:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9389735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zillah975/pseuds/zillah975
Summary: "Serve them... but be who you are."





	

“You see, that’s the problem, right there.” Tem'ria watched Seya closely across the table and the remains of their meal. The wine was gone, and Seya had brought out the flask of brandy she carried with her. It was mostly gone now too. The cool Teldrassil night was blue-black and soothing around the open-sided pavilion where they relaxed, and their nightsabers lounged nearby, their luminous eyes half-closed. “You’ve spent most of your life looking for answers outside yourself.”

Seya shook her head. “No, shan'do, I’ve–”

“Yes,” Tem'ria broke in. “You were to be a priestess of Elune, weren’t you, until you abandoned it for Tymarek?”

“That wasn’t just for Tymarek,” Seya protested. “You saw his devotion to his calling. Did you ever see that in me, for mine?”

“You saw it,” Tem'ria reminded her, “until you thought to compare yourself to what you saw in him. So you left your studies to support him, and learned to track and to fight–”

“Skills which have served me well,” Seya pointed out.

“Even so.” Tem'ria was ticking things off on her fingers. “You gave that up for innkeeping when he chose a quieter life, then in due time gave up your inn to come care for him when he entered the Emerald Dream. And when he died, instead of returning to a path of your own choosing, you let Syndra talk you into the Sentinels.”

“No, it wasn’t–”

Tem'ria put her finger to Seya’s lips and Seya quieted submissively. “And when she was sent to the new lands in the east, you left the Sentinels so you could join her. And when she vanished, you disappeared from their view and from ours as well, and wandered, am I right?”

“Wandered,” Seya replied, “searching within myself.”

“And found…?”

Seya scowled and reached for her flask. “Good companions.”

“Yes.” Tem'ria nodded. “Good companions. And yet you come to me more confused than you were the day I met you.”

“I haven’t had much time alone,” Seya muttered. “And other people are confusing.”

Tem'ria chuckled. “And yet we seek them out. It’s a wonderful irony, isn’t it, that we can only learn who we are in congress with others, but we can only become who we are by ourselves.”

“If that’s what you call wonderful,” Seya answered, and poured them the last of the brandy.

“Tell me this,” Tem'ria said. “Can you make them act as pleases you?”

Seya shook her head sullenly. “I wouldn’t even if I could. They’re their own people, they’ll do as they think fit.”

“And so must you.” Tem'ria reached for Seya’s hands and gripped them. “You have a good heart, my student. But don’t mistake that for a soft one. Here,” she let go and pushed back from the table, moving to open a small chest by the window. “I’ve got something for you. I had it made after the last time you visited.”

Seya drew in a breath as Tem'ria brought out the armor, each dark piece exquisitely worked. “Shan'do,” she murmured, taking the supple leather tunic in her hands, “I can’t…. How much did this cost?”

Tem'ria snorted. “That’s no concern of yours, thero'shan. Go, put it on. I want to see that it fits.”

Fit it did, as sleek as a second skin. As Seya finished lacing the tunic, Tem'ria withdrew one last piece from the chest: the helm, a leather hood covering a golden mask fashioned like a raven’s beak. But beautiful as it was, Seya had her doubts. She had never cared for the full-face helms that so many other fighters used, and how they muffled her ears and put blind spots in her vision. This was Tem'ria, though, who had known her almost her whole long life, and Seya obediantly tucked her hair up and drew the hood over her head.

Her eyes widened in surprise. If anything her hearing seemed more acute, her vision clearer. The boughs of Teldrassil shone in the moonlight, and she could hear the almost silent breathing of the nightsabers. And within her own heart, something began to loosen, began to uncoil like an emerald serpent stirring from its long winter sleep.

“You can serve your new home,” Tem'ria said, “your new companions, without losing yourself. Serve them,” she said, and tapped Seya’s chest. “But be who you are. All of who you are, not only the face you want them to see.”

Seya shook her head, running her fingers over the smooth mask. “This won’t be as easy as a new helm, shan'do.”

Tem'ria smiled. “Nothing is ever so easy. This is only to remind you that you are not only the face you show the world. However much you care for others, do not forget that you live on both sides of the mask, and only with both sides will you be whole.”


End file.
